An Aladdin's Cave...

of plants! Vivaio Noaro, in the middle of a small town just up the valley from Ventimiglia, and somewhere we've been meaning to get to for the past few years - ever since one of our more respected plant suppliers in the West Country had spoken reverentially of the place as being one of the best nurseries he knew in the whole of Europe. The entire continent. Which was possibly the reason for our surprise, when we found it to be (from the outside) a couple of distinctly unpromising sheds and a fenced-off area in the middle of the town car park. "There must be more", we thought. "This is just the front-of-house, and we'll be directed to some vast acreage up in the hills, where all the good stuff is kept." But, no. This was it; all of it. And crammed to the gunwhales with treasure trove, it turned out to be. Vast quantities of plants, all in perfect condition, all neatly set out and (mostly) efficiently labelled: plants we'd only ever heard of, but never seen before; varieties of plants we would never have guessed even existed; things we had in mind, but had 

had no idea where we could lay our hands on them...as well as all the more usual stuff, which we eschewed in favour of the things we wouldn't be able to get elsewhere (car space was limited, and Tuscany is well supplied with nurseries which sell run-of-the-mill). Twenty seven different varieties of Jasmine, alone! Water plants...ground covers...exotic grasses...more different kinds of bamboos, and lilacs than you could shake a stick at....and on...and on. And two hours later, we eventually left...along with three water hyacinths, a prostrate bamboo, a talboteana (plus two other interesting, and hitherto unknown groundcovers), three different kinds of tulbaghia, two jasmines (a nitidum and an angolare), a dietes grandiflora (almost impossible to find!), a Sollya Heterofila (ditto) a  vinca minor Getrude Jekyll, and a dwarf papyrus. They swayed gently in the driving mirror along the autostrada del sole, all the way back to Pisa.

And that was the one drawback. The autostrada del sole. I know hidden treasure is generally to be found only after having met and overcome various challenges, rescued maidens, slayed dragons, etc...but the autostrada del sole is actually asking a bit too much, frankly. Things might have been better had we not decided, on our way out of Pisa, that the clutch, which was due to be replaced next week anyway, did not inspire sufficient confidence to embark with it on a 700 kilometre journey, round-trip - so, we left the car in the long term car park at the airport, and transferred into a rental job. Which was small, and rather tinny, and felt not unlike trying to steer a recalcitrant supermarket trolley; I felt I had to hang on to the steering wheel for dear life, in order to prevent the car from being wobbled off-course by every Formula One driver (and every Italian driver is one) who decided to demonstrate their machismo by overtaking at great speed.  And even that might not have been too bad, except for the nature of the road, which climbs into the hills beyond La Spezia, and then comprises a series of long tunnels (which are fine) which then debouch suddenly onto stretches of roadway elevated many hundreds (thousands?) of feet above the valleys below...two (narrow)  lanes wide, and only a

thin guide rail between the road, and certain death only inches away to either side. The stretches of elevated road are sometimes only a couple of hundred metres long....and sometimes more like a kilometre or so. I speak as one who is unnerved even by that bit of post-war road engineering at the Hogarth roundabout in Hammersmith, which has a drop on either side of all of twenty feet or so. By the time we eventually reached Ventimiglia, it had been the white-knuckle ride to end all white-knuckle rides, and I was reduced to a quivering heap on the floor of the car. And the TD (who still can't drive, since his shoulder hasn't fully recovered) had subsided into helpless silence.

Oh, well...

And the other reason for the journey had been to go and see the Hanbury Garden, just on the other side of Ventimiglia. For decades, one of the glories of the riviera, the garden passed in the sixties from the Hanburys into the hands of the Italian State, and since 1987, has been the responsibility of the University of Genoa. Who should be ashamed of themselves. On entering the garden, before we'd had time to look round, we asked one of the senior gardeners what he did against chafer bugs (having found one on one of the roses just beside the entrance gate). "Oh", he said, "there's really nothing you can do about those...so we don't do anything". Which, on the face of it, sounded quite depressing, since chafer bugs are a perennial problem in the garden in Pisa. Except that, having walked around the place a bit, we soon realised that the staff there take the same approach to watering, weeding, pruning, and indeed any aspect whatsoever of garden maintenance. A worse example of careless neglect it would be hard to imagine. A once glorious garden in a pitiful and unnecessary state of decay....they have twice as many gardeners working there as there are at Ninfa, which is in a perfect condition, and, judging from the numbers of people visiting, combined with the not insignificant entrance fee, they have a much more generous revenue stream as well. Inexcusable. It was worth going to see, just to get a sense of what once had been...but as a garden visit, it was on a parallel with a trip to Pompeii, with nothing on view but sadly decayed remains.

Which was what also became of the 'home' car, which, once we were back,  I collected from the airport car park in Pisa, and then drove to La Gabella, to collect the four-footed. I suppose it could have been worse, and the clutch could have given up in somewhere like Colignola, instead of in San Giuliano Terme, which is what it did. Conclusively. I think the clutch cable gave way...but, whatever it was, the car gave up the ghost, and I managed, just, to get it off the road, before conceding defeat. With no cell phone on me, all I could do was lock it up and leave it there, in the middle of the Tuscan countryside, before walking the slightly puzzled four-footed all the way home from there. Fortunately, we were able to call the garage and arrange a pick-up truck, just before everybody disappeared for the weekend...I imagine if it had been left to the gardeners at Hanbury to sort out, it would still be there several months from now, minus a couple of wheels and all its mirrors, while they stood around scratching their bottoms and wondering what's for lunch!

Tonight's dinner:

Bouchées a là Reine

Pork Chops, stuffed with Gruyère and lardo; Fava Beans in Parsley Cream

Vanilla soufflés

Instant (practically) steamed puddings

About once a fortnight - if not more frequently - there comes a moment when I realise that already it's 7.30, and I've spent longer than intended  'just doing that last task' in the garden, and I haven't actually got round to doing anything about dessert, and the apple tart/zuppe inglese/vacherin/chocolate parfait that I'd had in mind just isn't going to happen. That's when I turn to one of a whole host of instant remedies....like zabaglione, or a hot souffle, or apples baked in cream, or (if possible) the remains of that apple sorbet or ginger ice cream that has been lurking unregarded in the freezer for the past week or so. And this method of practically instant  'steamed' puddings falls happily into that category.
For me, it involves an unusual foray into the use of the microwave - which, in this household, like many others, is normally reserved for re-heating coffee and the occasional mug of lunchtime soup. Several years ago, I toyed with a book called 'Madame Benoit's Microwave Cookbook', which came from Canada, and was initally appealing largely for the fact that Madame Benoit had actually been a pupil in Paris of Pomiane himself. Published in the seventies, it was presumably an attempt to ride the wave of enthusiasm back then  for the wonders of a new technological age...and I imagine that in most households, as here,  it was tried out experimentally on a few occasions, before being quietly relegated to the upper shelves, while the microwave was consigned to re-heating coffee and to dealing with frozen vegetables. Sic gloria transit.
In this recipe, however, the microwave actually cooks something - and once you've worked out exactly how to use your particular machine to get the best results (which is the only tricky part) then the results are really pretty good.
The original recipe was by Dan Lepard, and specified either a marmalade topping or a version of treacle sponge. I haven't actually tried either of those, but discovered that you can play as many tunes as you like with the topping (I think my favourite, so far, was a few fresh raspberries, and a spoonful or two of apricot jam...homemade, not the sad commercial variety ...which collapsed and melted deliciously as the puddings baked). The other day, which had been in general quite fraught, when the technical dept discovered that  what he'd thought was merely bruising from having fallen over on the walkway as he was rushing to get the post was in fact a broken scapula, and he'd spent the day dealing with doctors and hospitals and x-rays and medication, dinner was inevitably a confused event - and I ended up adding a teaspoon of chocolate powder to this basic recipe  and topping it with fresh blueberries...and the result was excellent.
As indicated, it appears - which I hadn't previously appreciated - that microwaves are not all the same, and so trial-and-error is required in order to find out exactly how your machine will work best for this recipe; for me, the machine in Italy takes 5 minutes on the high setting, and the machine in London needs at least 9 minutes. You'll need to work it out for yourelf.

For two individual puddings:

Ingredients: 65g butter; 65g sugar; zest of one orange (or a few drops of orange oil); 65g flour; 1 tsp baking powder; 1 egg; 1 generous tsp chocolate powder(optional);  topping ingredient of your choice (jam, or fresh berries, or a comination of the two, or syrup....as you wish)

Method:

1. Either butter or trenwax the inside of two large ramekins (the ones I use for this are 10cm diameter and about 8 cm in height). Cover the base of the ramekins generously with your chosen topping ingredient.

2. Using an electric beater, cream together the butter and sugar, and then add in the egg. Fold in the flour, orange, baking powder and chocolate (if using).

3. Divide the mixture between the two ramekins - in ramekins of the size I use, it should about two-thirds fill each one.

4. Cover each ramekin with a piece of clingfilm, stretched tight, and microwave them for the time it takes for them to rise (quite dramatically) and to cook through. In his recipe, Lepard quoted only a minute or so being needed, but then maybe he uses a state-of-art microwave with all-singing-all-dancing hot-and-cold-running everything, as opposed to something that came free along with the new fridge-freezer we got from Media World, more than a decade ago. In any event, the finished pudding should be above the top of the ramekin and the surface should look distinctly 'cooked' (i.e dry, and not unlike a cake surface). If in doubt, stick a knife into the middle and see if it comes out clean; if it doesn't, put the ramekin back in for another minute or so.

5. Unmould onto a heated plate, and serve with cream or the sauce of your choice

Tarte à l'Orange

A first cousin of the ubiquitous Lemon Tart, and yet something which is rarely to be found on menus or in recipe books. I have no idea why. If anything, this tart is even more delicious than the lemon version, with a deeper and more complicated flavour, and a texture which is generally creamier and more sensual on the tongue.
This recipe comes from Marco Pierre White - although, as is often the case with him, the quantities were all over the place in his published version, and his idea of what was appropriate for 'eight servings' would have fed an entire platoon, by my reckoning. You can play tunes on the recipe, as well - in the past, for instance, I've scattered fresh raspberries over the pastry shell before filling it with the orange cream (not something I tend to do now, as I use oranges from the garden, and for obvious reasons, they never coincide with garden raspberries), or you could use toasted slivered almonds in the same way.
I have, before now,  used OJ from a carton for this recipe, and it works perfectly well - I suppose I now just have the zeal of the convert in relation to the fruit growing outside my own door, and so eschew the commercial option.
The quantity given here will probably give more orange cream than you need for the tart - it depends somewhat on how high the sides of the tart shell are (or if it has shrunk in places in blind baking) and also perhaps on how much 'displacement' there has been if you have added other ingredients to the tart shell before pouring in the cream. No problem. Pour any additional cream into a ramekin (or two) and bake in the oven alongside the tart. The baked creams are meltingly delicious, and can be served on another day as a dessert, heaped with fresh berries.
  
For an eight inch tart:

Ingredients: Shortcrust pastry shell ( I generally make a batch of pastry using 8 oz butter, 10 oz flour, a pinch of salt and 50 ml water - this makes three 8" shells); 500 ml fresh orange juice; 200g sugar; 4 eggs; grated zest of 2 oranges; 125 ml cream.

1. Blind bake the pastry shell at 180 degrees C until completely brown and crisp - it won't get cooked any further at the lower temperature used for setting the cream filling, so all the baking needs to be done at this stage. Reducethe oven temperature to 130 degrees Conce the shell has been taken out of the oven.

2. Put the Orange Juice into a pan over medium heat, and reduce to half the original quantity.

3. Beat the Eggs with the Sugar, until pale yellow, then whisk in the reduced Orange Juice, the Orange Zest, and the cream. Stir to ensure all ingredients are thoroughly amalgamated.

4. Carefully fill the tart shell with cream, as full as you can, and place in the 130 degree C oven for half an hour. At the end of this time, the tart should still visibly 'wobble' in the centre - it will continue to firm up under its own heat once it has been taken out of the oven.

Allow to cool to room temperature, and serve.

Enough Winter! (Ed.)

I'm bored with it. The garden is a squelchy, soggy mass, from days on-end of rain. I've had to dash out between downpours this week to plant clematis (montanas Grandiflora, Rubens, and Elizabeth) and roses (Paul's Scarlet Climber, Coral Dawn, and Kriton - which is in fact Iceberg under another name - to smother parts of the new pergola, and Mr Lincoln, Jardins de Bagatelle, and something which calls itself Letizia, but which I suspect is really Silver Anniversary, in one of the beds at the end of the north lawn). No serious gardening...although, once things have dried out a  bit, it should be very plain sailing to dig the three new flowerbeds - which are almost the last remaining task on my list of serious Winter to-do's. Once those are done, and we've reconstructed the fruit cage, and I've pruned the two remaining old apple trees, then I can get started on post-Winter tasks, like pruning the hydrangeas, and cutting back the pennysetum and the buddleias, which should be synonymous with the start of Spring. 

And  not a moment too soon, IMHO.

Tonight's dinner:

Luganega Sausage, in Brioche

Irish Stew (Richard Olney's version, which he claims is more French than Irish...and he certainly seems to think it goes better with Beajolais than with Potcheen)

Tarte à l'Orange (almost the last of this year's crop from the large orange tree outside the office window - which has kept us in fresh OJ every morning since before Christmas).

Port Sauce

One of those sauces which is guaranteed to produce an appreciative comment...or an even more eloquent silence...at the first mouthful. French in origin, of course - I don't think any other (western, anyway) cuisine produces sauces with this kind of subtle complexity....certainly not Italy, or any of the scandinavian or anglo-saxon kitchen traditions.

This version is a re-working of something from the late-great-Julia. She specified it for use with a roast chicken, and tied it into an unnecessarily complicated process which has the hapless cook engaging in last minute needless flambéeing of carved chicken pieces, and thereafter a breathless dash to the finish-line, destined to bring to the table perfectly served chicken and a cook in need of a quiet sit down and a reviving glass. Sometimes, I think the L-G-J didn't always....think, I mean.

In fact, the sauce can be made in its entirety in advance, and gently re-heated as required to be served with chicken either roast or sautéed (suprêmes, a couple of minutes either side in butter and oil, and then eight minutes in a hot oven), or else pretty much with any version of roast or grilled white meat.

For four (or so) servings.

Ingredients: 500g mushrooms; 10g Butter; juice of half a Lemon; 280 ml Cream; 10g Cornflour; 2 tbs, or so, of Chicken Fat ( or Duck, or Goose Fat, if you have it - or, failing that, more Butter); half tbs chopped Shallots or Spring Onions; 150 ml Port; Salt and Pepper.

Method:

1. Thinly slice the Mushrooms. Put in a saucepan along with 150 ml water, the Butter, Lemon Juice, and a quarter teaspoon of Salt. Bring to the boil, then reduce to a brisk simmer and leave, covered, for eight minutes. At the end of this time, drain the pan through a sieve, to reserve the liquid in a bowl, and return the Mushrooms to the pan.

2. Use 1 tbl of the Cream to make a paste with the Cornflour, then add this, along with the rest of the Cream to the Mushrooms. Heat until it bubbles, and simmer for two minutes, then remove from the heat and add seasoning to taste.

3. In another pan, sweat the chopped Shallot in the Chicken Fat for a couple of minutes until softened, then to this add the Port and the reserved juice from cooking the Mushrooms; boil, to reduce the amount of liquid to about 150 ml*. To this, add the Mushrooms in their cream, and simmer for two to three minutes, to thicken to a coating consistency. Test and adjust seasoning as required.
Either serve immediately, or else set aside to be gently re-heated for serving later in the day.

* This is the kind of instruction which used to drive me nuts - having no facility for judging by eye the quantity which remains when one is in the process of reducing a liquid over heat. The way to do it, in practice, is to ensure you always use the same pan for this process, and to create for yourself a measuring stick, which has inscribed on it the levels within the pan which correspond to e.g 100 ml, 150 ml, 200 ml, etc; by putting the measuring stick into the boling liquid, you can immediately see how much liquid you have left in the pan, and how much further you still have to go.   



  

It's raining...

The four-footed gazes blankly, with philosophical resignation, curled up on his bed in the tinello, as the rain beats drearily down outside. Not a day for running around and endlessly presenting tennis balls or pine cones to be thrown for him to chase. He's very good about it...even if the door is opened for him, just in case he has a pressing urge to go and ease springs, he lowers his head and peers thoughtfully at the weather, before looking up to indicate that actually, all things considered, it's probably a better idea to stay inside in the warm. He's right.

  Olga bangs around with a floor polisher, while Radio Tbilisi (which we try and remember to put on when she's here, to make her feel more loved and therefore less likely to find other and more congenial work elsewhere) drones in the background. The Technical Department has gone to explain to the Cairoli amminstratore where he's gone wrong in calculating condominial charges for the past three years (for example, that the condomini have been charged forty euros a week, apparently since the beginning of time, for a condominial cleaner who doesn't exist!). Lentil soup simmers aromatically on the stove, and I contemplate both the chapters of Orgoglio e Pregiudizio I need to prepare in advance of this evening's

italian conversazione, and the thought that I could provide crepes, along with Ms Austen's finest, in honour of today being Shrove Tuesday - and in return for the Pauli's offering last week of not one but two different kinds of zeppole (a kind of deep-fried small doughnut, light as love, filled with flavoured cream and drenched in sugar; Paola claims they're carnevale fare, although further investigation says they're related to the feast of San Giuseppe, which isn't until March 19th. I suspect the carnevale angle is merely an excuse to start eating the things much earlier in the year ....if any excuse is acually needed).

Tonight's Dinner:

Fettucine, with fried zucchine and parmesan

Vallespluga chicken (small, tender, and full of flavour) roast, and served with soubise sauce; roast salsify.

Strawberry Bread & Butter Pudding, made with panettone left over from Christmas.

Sea Bass stuffed with Fennel

This...is...seriously delicious! The combination of fennel and sea bass is hardly unusual, but here (helped by the judicious addition of a slug of pernod) the flavour, and the creaminess of the stuffing, combined with the  soft flakiness of the fish cooked en papillote is simply sensational. And equally good cold, too....so, excellent if cooked on one day and served as a summer lunch dish on the following day. Apparently, this is a Roux family favourite; and, having tried it, I can readily understand why!

The only tricky part is the process of boning the fish before stuffing it. In fact, as with all boning, the first time you do it, it's largely a question of a good sharp knife, and a careful approach; and after a few times of having done it, you'll wonder what the fuss was all about. With sea bass, the method is as follows:
Go in from the back. Slide the blade of the knife in along one side of the back-fin, and carefully make a cut the length of the fish, feeling the blade against the backbone as you go; once you've cut the entire length of the backbone, go in again but from the other side of the back-fin and repeat the process. Then, reach in and carefully break (or cut with e.g poultry shears) the backbone as close as you can to the tail end of the fish, and starting at that end carefully pull  the backbone out, working your way towards the head (you may need carefully to free the far side of the skeleton, pulling gently, as you go); when you get towards the head, you'll find some rib bones going into the flesh of the fish, and these you should either free, using the blade of the knife, or else snap them off, and remove them later, using tweezers, after you've taken the backbone out entirely. If your fish hasn't already been gutted, then at this point, as you reach the stomach cavity, you should also gut the beast. When you've freed up as far as the head end of the backbone, then break or cut that end as well, and remove the entire bone from the fish. You should end up with a nice clean pocket, ready for the stuffing. If, as is often the case, the fish you get has already been gutted, leaving an opening in the belly, then you will now have a fish which is open on both sides - this doesn't matter, it just means you need to be a bit more careful when it comes to stuffing and wrapping it.


And the recipe...

For two generous servings, and some left over.

Ingredients: 1 seabass, boned as described above (if it hasn't been scaled before you got it, then do so now, or else you risk loose scales ending up on the plate, when you come to serve); half a medium Onion; half a medium fennel bulb; 2 tbs Olive Oil; half a cup of Cream; 1 tbs Pernod; 2 tbs Cornflour; Salt and Pepper.

Method:

1. Very finely dice the Onion and Fennel. Heat the oil in a heavy bottomed pan, and sweat the diced vegetables for five minutes or so, until they have collapsed but not yet started to colour.

2. Add the Cream, raise the heat, and cook for a few minutes, stirring, until the Cream has visibly thickened.

3. In a small bowl, mix the Pernod into the Cornflour and stir to make a smooth paste; stir this into the Fennel-Onion mixture (the Cornflour stops the Cream in the stuffing from splitting when the fish is being baked). Transer the mixture to a bowl and allow to cool down; add salt and pepper to taste.

4. Once cool, the stuffing should be quite dense. Spoon it into the boned fish, to recreate the shape of the fish when whole. With a piece of greaseproof  paper about six inches longer than the fish and deep enough to roll the fish in it two or three times, carefully roll up the fish inside the paper, and twist the ends firmly round, to make a sort of christmas cracker.

5. Put into a roasting pan or onto a baking sheet and into an oven pre-heated to 220 degrees C; for a fish appropriate for two or three servings, the fish should be done in twenty minutes.

6. To serve, cut the 'cracker' open with scissors, and then use the tines of a fork to peel awaythe top skin of the fish. Using two serving spoons, cut into the fish, to lift out each portion, steaming and delicious (the bottom skin of the fish should stay in place as you lift the fish and its stuffing away).

Serve, either with small braised onions, or else with diced salsify, roast in duck fat.